Hello, friends. I hope your Thursday finds you well, and that you have NFL Network on in the background as you absorb footage from training camp. BLESSED, BLESSED TRAINING CAMP. Oh God, the season’ so close! You can be distracted by the Olympics for the next three weeks, and then there will be preseason games and HOLY CRAP YOUR FANTASY DRAFT IS TOMORROW. It was a long, long offseason, but we’ve made it through the worst.

Well, except for the guy who bought a house with his girlfriend four days after she told him that she cheated on him (see below). That guy is still screwed. Everyone else can relax and read on:

O Captain My Captain, Fantasy : Any good late round running back sleepers to look out for? After Jamaal Charles went down last year, solidifying my legacy of losing early round picks to injury, picking up an early running back is too high risk for me.

If you’re afraid of losing fantasy players to injury, you probably shouldn’t be playing fantasy football. As for sleepers, look for guys who do well in the preseason that back up injury-prone starters. WHY HELLO THERE, MICHAEL BUSH AND MIKE GOODSON.

And what are Marmalard’s chances of doing anything productive after last year’s abysmal performance and without Vincent Jackson to float it to?

I haven’t done the research to back this up, but I would guess that Rivers’s numbers for the last years before 2011 were helped greatly by a noodle-armed quarterback’s security blankets: an All-Pro tight end and running backs with great hands (LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles). Gates was injured or ineffective for much of 2011, and Mike Tolbert — who became the go-to receiver out of the backfield — also missed significant playing time due to injury. I think those positions will have a greater effect on Rivers’s numbers in 2012 than the absence of Vincent Jackson.

Sex: Ok, so I am a college student interning in a city for the summer. I’ve always been kind of lost when it comes to love, sex and relationships.Â However, I met a girl in a program through my college in this city, and after recruiting a buddy of mine to serenade her in classic Top Gun fashion,

we ended up fooling around and really just spending a large amount of time in each other’s company. The sex is great (she’s insatiable and a yoga instructor) and we also get along really well. So it’s safe to say I’m starting to fall for this girl.

Unfortunately, she graduated, and I just hit the halfway mark of college. So obviously, this relationship goes no further than this summer, sadly. We broached the subject of the long-distance thing (since she lives 30 minutes from the campus), but she loves sex too much, I’ve had a horrible long-distance experience where I got played, and it seems like we are just in very different parts of our lives (she wants to be starting a family in 2 years, while I am looking to enjoy college and don’t want to think about 2 years from now).

LOL, young people with plans. So much to enjoy here: 30 minutes being “long distance,” a set time for starting a family when she doesn’t even have a boyfriend… please, go on.

My question is, how do I continue to have this awesome fling over the next 2-3 weeks without becoming more emotionally attached? Having read the mailbag religiously and also having spoken with my spirit guide, the Right Reverend Boatfucker (who actually introduced me to KSK), I know that to continue this long distance would be a waste of time, but I can be stupid and sentimental. Do you have any advice on how to enjoy the time I have without falling into the trap that is long-distance relationships? Cheers, Tiberius

Well, don’t be stupid and sentimental. Just enjoy getting laid — that really shouldn’t be difficult for a 20-year-old male to do. You can be clingy and emotional and try to get her to visit campus for sex AFTER the summer.

Sex: I live in Iowa. I am not from Iowa. I came here for college and never left. About 95% of the population in Iowa is from Iowa. The only people that move to Iowa from outside of Iowa, I’m told, are idiots. Like me.

And writers for the MFA program. So yes: idiots.

I’ve been here for about a decade now, and I have never never dated an Iowan, and not by choice. I’ve gotten down with a few, but there are plenty of farmer’s daughters that I’d like to explore slipping a ring on, but, well, something just doesn’t compute. My relationship history whilst living here has included a girl from Wisconsin who broke up with me to move home, a girl who was raised in California, and two dumbass long-distance relationships with girls from my home town more than three hours away.

Your hometown is THREE HOURS AWAY FROM IOWA??!?!?!? My God! That must be NOTHING AT ALL like Iowa! How have you survived an ENTIRE DECADE of crippling culture shock?

Now, I love Iowa. I really do. I’m very comfortable, I have a lot of friends, and really enjoy my life here. Do you think there’s an actual disconnect between yourself and women based on where you grew up? Am I automatically a turn-off to Iowa girls because I didn’t wrestle in high school, detassle corn every summer growing up or have an uncle who works on a hog farm? Can they smell it on me? I’m just a shithead from the suburbs of a city with a population larger than the entire state I live in. Is that an automatic disqualifier? – Hayden Fish Fry

Stop being stupid. You’re not from Zimbabwe or China or even Florida. You’re from THREE HOURS AWAY.Â If you’re as happy as you say you are, then stay put and be patient. If you want a bigger dating pool, then step away from being comfortable and move to Chicago. That city’s great. It’s got all the trappings of any other great city, except all the people are super-friendly because they’re Midwesterners.

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KSK, Sexy: I’ve been in an up and down, but healthy relationship with my girlfriend for close to 5 years now (26m, 24f). In April, as a groomsman, I had a bachelor party to attend which involved visiting a strip club or 3 (which the gf has never been wholeheartedly comfortable with, but had accepted this as a pre-wedding ritual). To my own surprise, I actually behaved myself as well as a drunk dude can in a palace of boobies out of respect for us, her self consciousness, etc. Well I get home from said bachelor party and walk into a confession from my gf that she got upset enough about the thought of me bathing in g-strings to black out and end up cheating on me with an ex-coworker the night I was out with my bromies in another city. Now this is completely uncharacteristic of her and, in my heart, I knew she didn’t do it maliciously to hurt me – but naturally, it hurt like bitchtits.

“I gave you permission to go to a strip club, but I was so mad about it that I got wasted and cheated on you. Wasn’t trying to hurt you, though.”

Bad news, friend: If your girl wasn’t being malicious about cheating on you, then she was merely stupid, jealous, immature, and insecure. I think I might prefer malicious.

Normally, this would be an F U deal breaker for me and would have probably ended it right then – but not only had we invested too much time to not try and work through it, but there’s the minor curveball that…I was signing for co-ownership on our first house in FOUR days.

No. Oh no. No no no no no no. Tell me you didn’t. You did, didn’t you? Oh God please don’t be that dumb.

As you can imagine, I felt incredibly trapped in the relationship for those next 4 days with the decision I would have to make both financially and emotionally. Ultimately, I decided that we should try and work through it as I can certainly relate to the mistakes one can make when visiting Black Out City, and worst-case-scenario, we split/sell the house…

Why hello there, Bad Idea Jeans commercial. “Normally, her cheating on me would be a dealbreaker, but I was about to make a huge financial investment to live with her permanently…” –You, just now, pretending to live in a world where that makes sense

Flash forward several months and we’re still having problems

(not exclusively related to the topic at hand, but primarily). I want to forgive her and have, but am having trouble forgetting. I’m an extreme optimist, but its still weighing on me mentally and is affecting my ability to stay positive about us. Though most importantly, it’s having a mental impact on sexytime for me. Not so much confidence or esteem issues – but more visualizing her with someone else affecting my attraction to her…any insight on how to overcome this?

Yes. BREAK THE FUCK UP.

As an aside, this guy had his hands all over my girlfriend without repurcussion – any insight on how to get less pissed off about that?

Absolutely! Once you’ve broken up with her, you go around having sex with whoever you want to.

Listen, I get it: people make mistakes. You’ve invested a lot of time — and now, stupidly, money — in this relationship. But you’re being TOO forgiving. You said that you “can certainly relate to mistakes” made while blacked out, but have YOU ever cheated on your girlfriend after blacking out? The booze is nothing more than an excuse. She was pissed and insecure about you doing something she didn’t like (again: even though she gave you the go-ahead), so she irresponsibly put herself in a position to cheat on you. Nothing about her Â immature and passive-aggressiveÂ line of thinking represents the kind of person I’d want to buy a house with or dedicate years of my life to, and the fact that you’re making excuses for her shitty behavior reveals that you’re trapped in a relationship with a VERY controlling person (I’m speaking from experience here).

So, welcome to your worst-case scenario. Sell the house.

Fantasy: Our fantasy league has a great rivalry between 2 members that share an ex-gf. Needless to say, they have an {Ex-GF} Bowl. They’re the whitest dudes ever and ‘rap battle’ about it on the iPhone T-Pain app like buffoons, and the following is an instant classic detailing one of their nights in college with a girl that resembled a mountain troll. Ungodly stupid, but catchy – enjoy!!Warmest regards, Strippers and Mortgages

I did everyone the favor of deleting that link. I made it through five seconds, then I realized that I was listening to white people I don’t know using an autotune app to “rap battle” about something I don’t care about. I’m not sure why, but I blame Bill Simmons for you wanting to share that.

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To Internet person answering things, Fantasy: Started an auction keeper last year with a bunch of friends. A minority of them are bitching that they like snake-draft more, completely ignoring the fact it would fuck up the entire keeper aspect from last year. The best course of action is to tell them to quit, either the league or their bitching since they signed up for it knowing the rules, right?

I guess. Though I suppose you could be a bit more polite and/or democratic about it. If the majority of the league is fine with the auction draft, the rest of the folks should stick with it.

Sex(ish):I wrote in a few months ago about a girl who gave bad blow jobs. I said “gave” because your advice worked, and now there are better blow jobs, so good job and thanks!

Hooray!

Now, we’ve been dating a while, things are going great. All of our friends even get along, so that’s pretty sweet. Except one her friends is an absolute raging cunt.

Whoa, that’s some heavy artillery.

I usually avoid using that word, but she deserves it. I am yet to meet anybody who likes her, even the lady and her other friends admit she’s a tremendous bitch. I am especially annoyed because (confirmed by her friends and mine) she is exceptionally bitchy to me. The girlfriend knows she is a bitch and that I hate her. Now, I’m aware it is likely because I am the new boyfriend (even though we’ve been together half a year or so) and stealing time they could be hanging, but that is some horse shit. I did not know the bitchy friend until I began seeing the girlfriend, and this cunt has never been nice. The girlfriend says I’m always nice to her, but she fails to reciprocate.

So, I’m at the limit. I basically want to tell this horrible girl something along the lines of she hates me for dating her friend, which is shitty because then she hates her friends happiness; she hates me because she thinks her friend has horrible taste in guys, which is a shitty thing to imply about a friend of yours; or she just hates me because I’m a dude and she is an unattractive, horrible person to be around and I wouldn’t give her a half second of my life if not for the girl I am happily dating. And regardless of her reason, I just want to tell her, directly, that I’m not taking her acting like a cunt towards me for no fucking reason and would appreciate being treated like a person and not sack of crap.

Is this a bad idea, because I am thinking logically and women-folk are heavily involved here?Â Or is there a better option that I’m missing because of my hate-rage towards this girl?

–No More Aloe Needed

Yes, it’s a bad idea. Shitheads like this girl always win pissing contests. If you blow up at her about being a bitch, she’ll just use it against you — not only will she have a REAL reason to hate you instead of whatever personal shortcoming causes the dislike now, but she’ll use the exchange against you the next time she talks to your girlfriend.

The only way to defeat assholes like this girl is with politeness and public shaming. The next time she’s a bitch to you in front of a group of people — IMPORTANT: the more witnesses the better — you have to calmly call her on it. “Hey, Mary [that's the bitch's fake name, because nobody has the courtesy to give me fake names in their emails],Â did I really deserve that? Is there something I did to you that makes you treat me so poorly? Because you always put me down in front of Joanna [fake name], and that’s really disrespectful and hurtful. I just don’t understand why you do that. Do you not want Joanna and me to hang out with our friends?”

See what I did there? With the phrasing of that last sentence, you made yourself part of the circle of friends and put HER on the outside. If she blows up at your calm questions, it confirms that she’s a bitch and you win. If she leaves in tears, you say, “I don’t understand why she’s crying — I’m the one who’s been taking all the abuse.” But remember: this all hinges on you keeping your cool. You’re trying to win over females, and you do that by stressing feelings and winning their empathy. A raised voice or a perceived threat will make you look like an aggro male asshole.

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Dear KSK, Fantasy Football: Iâ€™m in a 16-team keeper league and am not sure whom to hold onto. Rules state that you must keep 2 players and that players cannot be kept for longer than 2 seasons (if I draft someone in Year 1 & keep them for Years 2 and 3 but trade them during Year 3, they have to go back into the draft after Year 3). My team has some quality potential keepers in Marshawn Lynch, Forte, Stafford, Welker and Bradshaw. Of note:

Â· Passing TDs are worth 6 points. Â· Receptions are worth 0.5 points Â· Lineup is QB, RB, 2 WR, TE & Flex, so you donâ€™t have to play 2 RB Â· I am drafting last in the 1st Round & do not have a 2nd Rd pick (traded it to get Lynch and won the title) Â· Of those 5, all of them except Forte can potentially be kept for 2 seasons (drafted Forte in 2010 & kept him for 2011)

I was originally thinking Lynch & Stafford but the recent DUI by Beast Mode has me reconsidering it due to the strong chances of a 4-game suspension. Would you still keep Lynch or roll the dice on Forteâ€™s knee/playing next to Cutlerfuck? Or would Welker or Bradshaw be a more reliable route to go?

I’d go with Forte and Welker. Bill Barnwell had a great article on Grantland this week about the best running back in football, and it made a compelling case that Forte was a Top-5 running back (Lynch was not). Welker, meanwhile, is a Top-5 wide receiver — especially in PPR leagues like yours — whereas Matt Stafford doesn’t rank as highly and gets injured more often than Forte.

Sex:Â No complaints and nothing extremely interesting going on there. I offer these 3 pics of a young Ann Margret as recompense to you & the Kommentariat for the lack of a relationship and/or sex-related question. -Inanimate Carbon A-Rod

Pictures of Ann-Margret… ACCEPTED. For anyone else who enjoys old-timey sexiness as much as I do, please see this Sexy Friday I posted a while back. It’s fantastic. Even the picture of Paul Newman gets me hot.

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Flight Attendants of Foreplay, Football: I’m in a keeper league with some friends and I’m having trouble determining how I should go about this. As keeper options, I have Run DMC (1st round), Fitzy (2nd) and Gronk (undrafted but under our keeper rules would be a 1st rounder… I think these are ridiculous keeper rules, btw).

I agree with you. That’s terrible.

I’m picking 4th in this year’s draft. I’m wary of DMC because well… he’s with the Raiders and breaks down every year and usually is a disaster. Fitzy is good value I think in the 2nd, especially since we do a snake draft of 12 people and I’d be picking him 20th. Any TE isn’t worth a first rounder, right?

I have to agree. Gronkowski’s monster year last year could justify a 1st-round pick, but it’s unsound to assume he’ll have the same record-breaking year.

The caveat to this is that I honestly don’t know who will be available at #4. Ideally I’d take Fitzy in the 2nd and pair him with a good running back in the 1st but all the good running backs could be kept and what am I left with? For the sake of advice, let’s assume that all the top running backs are taken, who do I take at #4? I’ve never been in a keeper league before so I don’t really know what the best approaches are to this.

You’ll still have options at 4. Let’s assume Ray Rice, LeSean McCoy, and Arian Foster go 1-2-3 (and if they don’t, you should take one of them with your pick). I think Matt Forte is a worthy option at 4, and Maurice Jones-Drew probably still has one more very good year before the wheels fall off. If you’re uncomfortable with those guys, there’s nothing wrong with saying “Fuck it” and taking Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady — just be aware that your #1 RB will be whoever’s available at the beginning of the 3rd round.

Sex: I’m not going to lie I tried to think of a good question here, but I simply couldn’t. I’m getting married next year and don’t really have any complaints about our sex life. So, in that case I’m going to forgo the obligatory sexy pic of some chick none of the Kommentariat will ever sniff (although if I was going to it would be a picture of Michelle Jenneke)

and I’m going to send some good vibes your way and wish you many years of happiness with your new wife and hope those years are filled with lots of baby making practice. HOWEVAH, we just got the check from her dad for their contribution to the wedding. Is it wrong with me to want to take this money out of my account in small bills, make a huge pile out of it on the floor and have wild, hot sex with her on it? If it’s wrong, I definitely don’t want to be right. Sincurrly, Scrooge McDuck

Whatever it takes to get laid during your engagement, go for it. Between now and the wedding, you’re going to need an awfully big pile of money on the bed to distract her from pictures of dried thistle clusters in mason jars on Style Me Pretty.

I want more like this!

Join The Discussion

Sexbag Cliffs Notes:
1) I’m with a great girl who evidently loves sex but is moving upwards of half an hour away. Too far, right?
2) I live in Iowa but can’t snag myself a hot Iowa lady. WTF?
3) Sweet zombie Jesus, dude.
4) I hate my lady’s friend who hates me. Should I make this worse or be a bit more rational and maybe fix it?
5) [Photos]
6) Umm… something about money, I guess?

Gronk (undrafted but under our keeper rules would be a 1st rounderâ€¦ I think these are ridiculous keeper rules, btw).

Wait, what?

The whole point of a keeper league is to reward people who are smart enough to grab someone like Cam Newton or Rob Gronkowski off waivers. Why on earth would you make someone pay the same price for a sleeper who hit the jackpot as you would for Arian Foster or Aaron Rodgers?

@Hayden Fish Fry: I’m gonna disagree with Caveman here and suggest Antonio Brown. Austin is good, but he’s got competition, whereas Brown finished out last year VERY strong and with Wallace holding out, his rapport with Football Kobe should get even stronger.

And dont go trying to kick ass on the dude that had his hands all over her. She is the one that made the commitment to the relationship, not him. It may be a dick move on his part, but the fault lies with her, not him.

Right. Iowa has a population of just over three million so that pretty much puts him in the suburbs of Chicago. Not everyone from Iowa grew up on a farm and I can attest that there isn’t much of a difference between Iowans and Wisconsinites.

You are probably right. That, and I didn’t really read the post very well (DERP). Grew up in Chicago proper and moved to Bloomington, IN for 4 years of college and than got the fuck out of Bloomington, IN after college because there is jack shit to do there if you are not in college. The suburbs v. Davenport idea is probably true. I have never lived in the suburbs, so they are a magical place to me where hot soccer moms in Juicy Couture bang all the new guys who move into town.

You’re spot on about college towns though. Both my parents went to IU and Bloomington is an absolutely lovely place but after graduation you do get the fuck out. It sounds to me as if this dude decided to stay in IC (I’m assuming it’s not Ames or fucking Cedar Falls) and is finding out there’s a reason you leave after graduation.

I grew up VERY rural and moved to Denver (I know, not that big, but still suburbia/ small urbia place), so it may surprise everyone that I was and am a social outcast and perceived deviant in BOTH places.

Hey! I lived in Davenport. Don’t underestimate the drawing power of the Quad Cities.
Hell, you can go to Dudley’s and grab a killer slice of deep-dish, you can see the Quad City River Bandits play at John O’Donnell stadium, there’s good fishing around, Credit Island is nice and has an 18 hole golf course… And..and.. Fuck, I’m glad I live in L.A. now.

And during the summertime, you can cross the Arsenal bridge or the 74 or the Centennial to Illinois and go to Whitey’s and get the greatest ice cream on the planet, and you can drive up the Rock River to Rockford and you pass the statue of Chief Blackhawk with his arms upraised to the west and you can get killer ribs at Jim’s Rib Haven and you can play a game of pick-up hoops with the Augustana College team..And..And..Harris Pizza! And Happy Joes Pizza! and and??they have a twinkie factory and they make farm implements. John Deere is buried there.

If you want a bigger dating pool, then step away from being comfortable and move to Chicago. That cityâ€™s great. Itâ€™s got all the trappings of any other great city, except all the people are super-friendly because theyâ€™re Midwesterners.

Fucking False on the friendly. I hate everyone. Do come for the babes, though. We have alot of them.

Okay, so since this is a Fantasy Football advice thread I figured I’d post this here. It’s rules for a reverse fantasy football league (i.e. picking players that suck). You start four players (QB, RB, WR/TE, DEF) and get points for your players delivering mediocre or bad performances. Anyone who has too much time on their hands is invited to have a look and give me some feedback, and if there’s enough interest maybe I’ll try to get a league set up for this season.

I like the concept and I went through your numbers. It looks like you put some good effort into making sure the point totals were in line with the types of performances put up.

The only place I have a question is on the WR scoring. How can you get “target” stats? I’m assuming you’d be doing this on NFL.com as they are the only ones I could think of that would track that.

My other question is what happens if, for example, the WR is having such a shitty performance that they stop throwing to him or pull him out of the game. At that point, you are hoping the head coach is Lovie Smith or Andy Reid so that they don’t make any in-game adjustments. It would be nice to be able to reward that kind of ineptitude.

@Balls of Steel: ESPN has target stats in the box scores, so I’m pretty sure they’d be available in real-time somehow. Drops would be a great metric and I know *someone* is keeping track, but I’m not sure if those are available in a fantasy-friendly format. As far as getting benched for sucking, I haven’t thought of any way to account for that. I suppose it’s possible to come up with some way of adjusting the “action” bonus so that it’s worth more if the player doesn’t accumulate any stats later in the game, but that a) gets complicated and b) could inordinately reward players who put up big numbers in junk time.

Does anyone else look at these pictures of Ann-Margret (or hell, current pictures of Ann-Margret) and realize that’s what Lindsay would have looked like if she’d never discovered amateur pharmacology and/or designer vodka?

Yeah, I didn’t mention in the mailbag that I can comfortably buy her out at the end of the year and be fine on my own in terms of affordability and re-underwriting the mortgage…so I’m not AS dumb as I made myself sound…but admittedly, not the smartest decision I have made in life, haha

It is very important to judge the link on its on merit and not because it is two of your friends. Otherwise you sink to the same level as the stay at home mom that posts everything her 2 year old says on FB like its the funniest thing ever uttered.

So Hayden Fish Fry clearly lived in the Chicago burbs to begin with, then moved to Iowa City to go to the University of Iowa, because that is EXACTLY how every single one of the ridiculous number of kids from the Chicago suburbs describes their arduous journey to Iowa. And every. single. one of them. sounds like a douchebag. Maybe the reason you can’t have sex with a woman from Iowa is because… you think they were all raised on farms?!

Hayden Fish Fry: I also grew up relatively close to Iowa being that both of my parents are from there. I also have several older cousins that spent their childhood, adolescents and college years in Iowa. My female cousins have married a lawyer from Yonkers, NY, an MBA graduate who grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and an accountant from from Manchester England. In short I don’t think it has anything to do with you being from the suburbs and more likely is because you are a god damm fucktard. Thank you that is all.

Thanks for the link to the Old Time Hotness Sexy Friday. That is a top 5 Sexy Friday, for sure.

The guy who bought the house with the young lady that cheated on him is the most pitiful story in recent sexbag memory. Dump her, sell the house, kick the shit out of the guy who banged her. He knew she was buying a house with you. He did it anyway. That is a scumbag move that needs to be punished – for all of us.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, Iowa guy. You’re exactly why I hate suburbs kids that move here. It’s still a Big Ten campus, man: you almost have to be TRYING to not get involved with someone here. Better yet: you can’t hook up with the idiot spawn that came from similar circumstances as you?

/native Iowan who moved to Iowa City for college, has not left yet
//has an irrational hatred for Illinois license plates, to boot

Echoing the sentiment of the rest of the Kommentariat: WTF were you thinking buying a goddamn *HOUSE* with that psycho cheating hootchie?? Sell it and GTFO! *PRONTO*!!

That shit was not an accident. She’s just a very bad person. If you stick around thinking you’re gonna “work through it” and change her, you’re in for a very rude surprise.
/find someone who’s not psycho to put your penis in

And I must stress this: Do not make this situation any worse than it already is by being stupid enough to impregnate and/ or marry this individual or you will regret it to the end of your days (which would be almost certainly foreshortened by your own hand).

1) You are 20, there will be more women. Hell, you can go get laid tonight. Odds are, she just wants to have sex with other guys. Don’t take it personal.

2) The having kids thing: That is either bullshit or she is a moron. If it is the former, see #1. If it is the latter, that first student loan bill will wake her quick.

3) 30 minutes? For fuck sake, my morning commute is longer than that. You can go see her, tap dat ass, and be back in less time than an Intro to Bio lecture. If you are in the same fucking zip code, IT IS NOT A LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP. A 30 minute commute is a discouragement if you live in in some 3rd World Hell hole and the roads are covered with IEDs. Not if you live on a college campus in the US.